Transcultural Modes and Myths of Mass Literature

Mass/popular literature is one of the most flourishing parts
of contemporary cultural process. In all the countries the better
part of fiction belongs to this kind, and there are developed
national traditions of different mass fiction genres. In bookstores
all over the world we can find heaps of paperbacks arranged according
to a standard order: crime, romance, science fiction, fantasy,
etc. Works by native authors are on display together with translations,
and no reader is afraid of any communicative error. On the contrary,
we follow the labels and summaries and, as in a supermarket where
we know for sure what we are buying - sugar or washing powder,
chose a necessary item.

So, it is obvious that popular literature, as well as mass
culture in general, is transcultural at its core. It is due to
transculturality that mass fiction remains one of the most popular
goods at the global market. That's why it seems rather important
to try to understand what mechanisms and structural laws and schemes
provide broadest appeal of such writings.

When we are to define a book of the kind, it's enough for us
to stick to it one of the labels I have already mentioned above:
romance, fantasy, etc. We usually treat these definitions as genre
ones, but, in fact, developed genre system of popular fiction
deals only with books' subjects, dominating themes, not with structural
differences, plots' or even objects' varieties. It serves for
readers' convenience. Science fiction, fantasy, or thriller may
have, and do have more often than not, an interwoven love story,
but genre definition states dominating subject of a book. It not
only points to the main subject but also states the way of its
presentation. Science fiction and fantasy both deal with fantastic,
but we know that while books of the first genre are based on some
scientific, or at least pseudo-scientific ideas, the second genre
samples manipulate with fairy-tale material. Erotic and sentimental
novels tell us about love, and every reader knows the difference,
as well as in case of crime stories presented in detective novels
and thrillers.

So, subject formulas follow and appeal to readers' diverse
interests, but there are some general mechanisms of handling all
the subjects.

Some "secret" or "mystery" is always a
moving force behind any plot. Mass fiction appeals to our curiosity
and pays primary attention to creation of "suspense".
Writer's ability to create "suspense", to invent diverse
"secrets" for his stories is usually one of the main
criteria of estimation of his talent.

It's very important for a book of the kind to have something
"new", "unusual" in its plot, or, at least
to make it look new. At the same time, the long way of market
development of commercial art helped writers (and movie makers)
to work out in their production a precise balance of "known"
and "unknown", "familiar" and "strange"
necessary for arising and maintaining readers' and spectators'
interest. For example, in spite of all the possible strangeness
of the fictitious reality of different "space voyages"
in science fiction, or "parallel world" of fantasy,
some of its formative characteristics are quickly identified by
a reader as relevant for his own world. On the contrary, so called
"everyday life epics" usually and inevitably show their
readers that there is always something strange, terrifying or
terrific, wonderful that waits just round the corner.

I remember a talk I had many years ago with my American friends.
Mark, a university professor of American literature, turned indignant
when I confessed that had been reading one of novels by Harold
Robbins. I tried to explain that the main attraction of books
of this kind for me and other Russians consisted in the fact that
we were reading about life "in another land" for a person
from socialist Russia, and not only from the point of view of
geography. H. Robbins used to write epic novels about Hollywood
stars, multi-millionaires, top-level politicians, etc. These were
quite strange things for us then. Some minutes later Mark's wife
smiled and whispered to me that she also liked to read novels
of that kind, and for the same reason: for the majority of Americans
this was "another land" too. Fortunes and misfortunes
of superstars are, of course, highly unusual, but core of matters,
reasons of events that happen, emotions produced, passions aroused
are familiar all over the world. Balance of known and unknown
works so well that readers from different hemispheres, different
national, cultural, and social contexts are equally attracted.

In mass literature production we always find one and the same
mimetic narrative mode, the one that can be described as "realistic"
in the most general meaning of the word, "life-like".
The principle of depicting typical persons in typical situations
was developed by the classics of the XIX century. The XX century
aesthetic experiments made writers of the so called "serious",
or "high" literature to change their attitude towards
mimetic principle of writing, to deconstruct it, or, at least,
to reform it radically. At the same time it seems to meet perfectly
the demands and needs of contemporary mass literature.

What may be the reasons? The easiest explanation for the popularity
of realistic convention in mass literature is usually found in
the latter's commercial origin. Mass readers obviously seem to
prefer a textual construct based upon a mimetic principle as the
easiest for perception. So, leaving aside a crucial task of defining
what "realism" in fact is, let's say that mass literature
uses major structural principles of a classical realistic mode
of narration: it "tells a story", presenting a sequence
of events, usually within a linear time organization, only sometimes
diversified by rather formal retrospect, and events themselves
are the major contents of a book. The event's milieu is organized
with abundance of details that are borrowed from everyday life
in order to create its probability, which is one of the manifestations
of the way popular fiction writers understand "realism".

If we "stand back" from the texts of different nations'
mass literature production we always find behind diversity of
details quite a limited amount of plots, themes, problems as well
as imagistic patterns. Characters and characteristics are recognizable
literary cliches that once discovered by high literature, or worked
out by mass fiction itself migrate from one novel to another following
some basic rules. Thus, "suspense" mentioned above,
together with "happy end" are absolutely unavoidable,
as well as charm, sexuality and noble character is inevitable
for a hero and a heroine. In fact, fictitious reality of this
kind of literary samples is strictly programmed, and not only
with the "genre formula" pattern. Typical situations
and characters are absolutely intertextual, and mass fiction as
a whole may serve a good example of intertextuality. Hence one
of inherent qualities of such texts: ability for endless continuation.
Robert Howard is dead but Conan the Barbarian continues his Quest.
Mimetic principle seems to work more within the literary field
itself, and we can say that popular literature is auto-mimetic
and uses what may be defined as "poetics of identity".
I think, science fiction of last decades and sentimental "romances"
demonstrate this explicitly. "Star Wars" by Lucas opened
a new phase of science fiction existence. The genre with a long
and good tradition of development now endlessly seems to repeat
one and the same story about good "ours" and bad "aliens",
building up a story with the help of a set of elements among which
we find not only space shuttles and cruisers but a standard interchange
of general battles and personal hero's problems. As for "romances"
- it is their "duty" to tell us again and again about
victory of Love. But it is an author's duty to organize heroine's
meeting with a rich and handsome aristocrat or millionaire. Their
love-story starts with some misunderstanding that leads to lots
of troubles, and only much later heroes understand that they belong
to each other.

Strict morality is one more fundamental rule of popular fiction.
When we read books of the kind we may be sure not only in victory
of good guys over bad ones, we also know that all the characters
will be "awarded" according to their feats and vices.
Some of them will die but only those that are either pure "victims",
or are guilty of something, and pay for that. Good and evil are
very important elements of fictitious world order, important but
simple. Complexity of these notions, dimensions of their relativity
- these are the matters of "high" literature. Inherent
balance of ethic and aesthetic that exists in all the works of
art is distorted in favor of ethic in popular fiction. Popular
culture in general tells us about life how it should be and never
about what it is. But as the presented events follow a canon of
rules that exists in a society, readers are ready to assimilate
with the fictitious reality.

That is a crucial result of one obvious fact: mass culture
appeals, and at the same time helps to form mass consciousness
which is based upon the feeling of belonging to a certain society,
group or tradition with its rules and values. While high culture
sees the necessity of investigating, analyzing and interrogating
stereotypes and ways of human life, mass culture simply affirms
society standards, repeats and supports certain existing moral
order and values. The latter are in fact abstract myths mass consciousness
produces. They belong and give shape to images of reality mass
consciousness identifies with real life itself, and recurrently
reveal themselves in all types of mass fiction "formulas"
through basic constituents of narrative. So, we may say that we
meet in mass literature a situation of pseudo-mimesis. Actually,
we may characterize this as a process of mythologizing. That is
how mass fiction fulfills its main mission of supporting in its
readers their feeling of belonging to a group that perceives reality
in a certain, pre-defined by some canon, way. At the same time
because these models and rules belong to our idea of reality to
a great extend as a certain desirability, they are in opposition
to reality. Hence the mentioned above feeling that all the events,
even in everyday life epics take place "in another land".

This balance of total assimilation with fictitious reality
and constant feeling of an impassable border between two worlds
creates the situation when myth-creation starts. Myths arise,
first of all, from community's necessity in mentioned above morality.
Implanted modality of presenting things creates a strict moral
order within fictitious world - love and hatred, goodness and
evil, courage and cowardice. Some mythologemes are highest manifestations
of transculturality: death and punishment for "bad",
and victory for "good" characters. (I deliberately pay
no attention to relativity of idea of good and evil itself.) Inevitable
victory of that or those declared moral is one of main myths,
forming pseudo-mimetic reality of popular culture. Quest is to
be a success. Cinderella shall turn into princess. Based on some
most fundamental ideas of Christianity, this notion underwent
a long process of secularization and was adapted by literature
of the XVIII - XIX centuries as one of its main messages. In the
XX century the idea of moral order turned to be one of the brightest
myths created in New Ages. Popular fiction as all popular culture
understands this myth as a fundamental for the sense of belonging
to contemporary society.

Some other formative myths of mass fiction are much closer
connected with reality of a certain community, and sometimes we
can even trace the very process of mythmaking when transition
of ideological climate in the real society changes a system of
rituals and codes of fictional world.

Let's turn to some examples:

One of the most fundamental changes of the world that saw the
XX century was a crucial alteration of the role of women in the
society. It immediately reflected in popular literature addressed
to female readers. "Domestic novel" - the dominant genre
in the XIX century female literature - is now only a subject of
scholar analysis. It was substituted by "romances" that
pay primary attention not to female duties after marriage but
to fortunes and misfortunes of that turbulent period in girl's
life that precedes marriage. "Romances" have their system
of modes they operate, which is practically the same for all the
authors all over the world. A novel by a Western author follows
them as obediently as a movie of an Indian director. At the same
time we may easily trace a certain evolution of the genre. Till
the 60es there was a strict distinction between "erotic"
and "sentimental" branches of love-stories. Sexual revolution
made authors to become more radical in depicting sexual life.
The idea of importance of sexual experience in forming of somebody's
identity became especially influential in American consciousness.
Mass literary production sticks to the point, and now one may
be sure to find in any American book of the kind several sexual
episodes. But if a reader prefers something more traditional and
modest, she may find it in love-stories by English authors. Traditions
of Victorian sentimental novel appeared to be stronger in the
cultural context of Great Britain and thus survived there.

Notions of personal freedom, self-sufficiency and unlimited
abilities of an individual are among corner stones of American
society. They comprise an inseparable part of a famous concept
of "American Dream". While a great part of what we call
"serious literature" of the USA is involved in analyzing
"American Dream" itself, its influence upon personality,
its various psychological and social manifestations, and demonstrates
its mythological origin and substance, mass fiction takes it for
granted. It presents and exploits one and the same type of hero
that steadily realizes his or her potential in creating his or
her personal life, all kinds of career or simply opposing and
struggling with all possible enemies and difficulties. Inevitable
"happy end" in this case is a success in achievement
of self-sufficiency that is certified by acquisition of some material
benefit. That is, so to say, a general model, now let's see what
happens to it in certain ideological situations.

Not to go too far back in time, let's start with the 1960es.
In that famous turbulent period of American life mass culture
reacted to the idea of civil disobedience of all kinds and used
to present an individual opposed to others and to the state system,
who came to feel himself absolutely free in forming out and demonstrating
his/her identity, and only this helped a hero to overcome all
the troubles and gain a prize.

The 70es and 80es in the US society saw the establishment of
new ideological standards that we now see in full flourishing.
New values of American mass consciousness stressed the idea of
belonging to a very complicated, multy-ethnic, multy-cultural
society, and at the same time to one (and nowadays the only) super-power
in the world. If in previous decades Soviet people were taught
to be torch - bearers for the rest of humanity, and were to think
in global perspective about the shining future of communism, since
the 1990es Americans are being taught to be in the XXI century
global knights of democracy.

That's why we now read in American mass fiction stories where
individual activity is good enough only if it appears to be in
concordance with other people interests, when it is "politically
correct". In a good part of "action" novels "Knights
of Democracy" still continue to fight with "the aliens"
from other Galaxies, but in other ones artful and aggressive Russians
have been replaced by terrorists of all kinds with vague Eastern
descent.

Psychological verisimilitude is also backed up by new demands.
That's why American mass fiction authors introduce now, say, family
background into crime-stories. We are presented with touching
stories about brave detectives suffering when their irresponsible
wives do not want to take into consideration their husband's professional
and human duty. One may say that collectivist outlook of the hero
of American mass culture grows fast, as well as his feeling of
responsibility for other people, his own and other countries,
mankind in general.

On the contrary, a strong priority of community upon individual
was proclaimed in socialist society of the USSR from the very
beginning. Life of a human being was estimated from the point
of view of his social usefulness, and presentation of a role which
an individual played in fulfilling supreme task of creating a
new socialist world was declared to be one of the basic missions
of literature and other arts. That's why a typical and real hero
of major part of Soviet literature was a person that considered
his social, ideological and professional functions in life to
be the most, or often the only, important. A hero that wanted
to devote his or her life to individual demands or simply family
life, on the contrary, was declared an egoist and was to be blamed.
And again, "serious literature" maid it an object of
psychological analysis, tried to create multidimensional characters,
while mass fiction quickly developed for its heroes several stereotypes
of behavior and standard situations.

Absolute verisimilitude was another demand that to a great
extend was preventing mass fiction development in the USSR. Writers
didn't have a skill of creating that mentioned above balance of
known and unknown. On the contrary, in officially accepted theory
of socialist realism "reality" was often understood
only as "everyday life". The writers were to diminish
the distance between fictitious reality and real life, to imitate
the latter in the kind of superficial naturalism. That's why even
detective stories were to follow ideological standards, even at
the expense of the genre qualities. "Psychological verisimilitude"
and "closeness to life" in this case usually meant that
the authors were to present their heroes not only as professionals,
but also as fathers, husbands, friends and lovers. They also were
to demonstrate their "ideological correctness" in some
political discussions. Priority of heroes' social and professional
functions was usually proved with the help of traditional family
problems: long before American mass culture heroines their Russian
counterparts couldn't understand the importance of their men's
duty and be patient and loving. The whole army of detectives in
the Soviet literature were left by their irresponsible wives.

In the 90es Soviet mass culture disappeared together with the
society it belonged and helped to mythologize. Transitional reality
of post-Soviet Russia gives little place to ideas of brotherhood,
collective necessity and responsibility. Immediately, mass culture
of the last decade started to create a native variant of a transcultural
mode of a lonely strong individual. He, of course, helps and protects
others, but only those who belong to his private universe. He
is victorious, and gets all his prizes (money, local beauty's
love, etc.). He unceasingly demonstrates both to his friends and
foes his self-sufficiency, and establishes rules for his "small
world" because he and all the others know that there are
no rules in a large one.

Mass fiction mythologizes contemporary situation of social
instability and makes various use of it. One of the striking results
of mythmaking of the kind is a quick development of the genre
of fantasy in Russian literature. There were practically no fantasy
samples in Russia in previous decades, mainly, I think, because
its always individualistic hero seemed to be out of place in a
collectivist society. Nowadays a hero of the type answers the
demands of people lost in a dangerous obscure reality of transitional
society. The same can be said about crime novels hero. Soviet
literature was rather rich with detective writings, but they were
usually "police novels". Now the greater part of the
books tells an endless story about desperate efforts of different
men and women to overcome criminals without any police help. One
of the typical modes of our crime novels now, as it was in American
fiction in the 60es, is a presentation of corrupted and oppressive
police itself.

Mass fiction was so successive in using myths of contemporary
Russia, that it to a great extend helped to form the country's
image in mass consciousness: "criminal Russia" - these
are the words frequently used all over the world. They correlate
with real Russia in the same way as, for example, a definition
"country of cowboys" correlates with the USA. By the
way, the ideas of American "wild West", "cowboy
country" were the result of the process of mythologizing
in a famous genre of "western" of a long process of
expansion towards the Pacific. Many American historians now try
to deconstruct the myth and present the real history of those
years but with little success. "Western", not a work
of literature, but its inheritor in cinema industry, has worked
out in mass consciousness a firm stereotype, and the society feels
no need to demolish it.

So, we may see how myths are constructed and deconstructed
in mass fiction. Mass consciousness constant mythologizing of
reality gives food and impulses to popular fiction that in turn
influences upon creative activity of our minds. The process seems
endless.